


Life Lesson

by M_Moonshade



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Blue Balls, Dean Teaches Castiel to be Human, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2422751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/M_Moonshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As much as Dean would have liked to skip over some of the more awkward teenage years, they were like body boot camp. A time when he got a free pass for being dorky and confused and a complete amateur, because he was just a kid and that was okay. </p><p>Cas just got dropped head-first into being an adult, with no instruction manual and no lesson and no grace period to get used to all the random weird urges and glitches that come with being human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in anticipation of season nine.

“All right, Cas,” Dean says, cornering the ex-angel in the bunker’s shooting range. “Something’s up, and you’re going to tell me what it is.”

Castiel blinks owlishly, and then pulls that look he’s picked up since he caught mortality—his eyes twitch all over Dean, taking in his expression, his posture, everything. It’s not just about having conversations anymore with him. Nowadays he’s practically taking notes on body language, and he still hasn’t got it yet.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says finally.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Dean snaps back. “You’ve been making faces for a solid month now. Something’s up.”

Castiel averts his eyes. “Just some minor discomfort. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah?” One long step and Dean’s smack dab in the center of Castiel’s field of vision—or at least his chest is.“You mean like how Sam’s visions were ‘just some bad dreams’ and ‘just some headaches’? Things are seven kinds of sideways right now, Cas. If something’s up, we talk about it. Whatever’s going on might just be an allergy attack, or it might be the prelude to a whole new apocalypse. But the only way we’re gonna be able to deal with it is if you tell us what’s going on.”

Finally the ex-angel looks Dean in the face (though still not quite the eye), his mouth drawn into a thin line. “I am confident this is not a portent to any cosmic events.”

“Care to share with the rest of the class?”

Castiel glowers up at him, but there’s an undercurrent of something else there. Shame. Which sets Dean’s mind on all the wrong tracks. He knows what that look means coming from Sam, and it’s never once been good.

Again Castiel looks away from him, his hand sweeping against the back of his neck. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Cas—” His tone is just about dangerous now.

“ _You_ said I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

Dean frowns. He doesn’t remember saying that. But then, he’s said a lot of things to Cas over the years. “Yeah, well that was then and this is now.” This is getting him nowhere. He takes a deep breath, softens his face. His tone. “C’mon, Cas. We’ve tried the whole secrets thing, and it doesn’t help anyone. You can trust me. Whatever’s going on with you, we can handle it.”

Something like a twitch of pain ghosts over Cas’s features for a moment, but when he turns back to Dean his big blue eyes are wide and contrite.

“There is a... an unpleasant sensation in my groin.”

A very large part of Dean wants to abort, to put a nice big stamp of TMI on this whole shebang, but he fights it back. He asked for this. He’d better see it through.

“What kind of a...” He coughs. “... _sensation_ we talking about here? Burning, itching, that kind of thing? Did you run into anybody before we found you?”

“I interacted with a number of people,” Cas says uneasily. “The sensation is closer to squeezing. At times, pulling. Like there is an uncomfortable weight on my scrotum.”

_You asked for this you asked for this you fucking asked for this._

“Okay.” Dean scrubs a hand down his face. “Anything else? Ah—any idea when this started? Is it a constant thing?”

Son of a bitch, why is he diagnosing another dude’s junk? How exactly did it come to this?

“It is... intermittent,” Castiel says. He seems to have caught on to Dean’s discomfort. “It first happened a few days after I... became human.” He says the words carefully, like he’s working around a fresh scab. “Typically it lasts no longer than a half hour. Most often it occurs in the early mornings or late at night, but there are still occurrences during the day. As you’ve obviously noticed.”

Dean’s mouth pulls into a frown. There’s no way—but if they’re gonna get to the bottom of this, he might as well be thorough.

“Have you tried jacking off when it happens? Does that change anything?”

Castiel gives him a puzzled stare.

“ _Masturbating_ , Cas.”

Cas’s eyes go a little bit wider, and his gaze sweeps over Dean’s face again—eyebrows, eyes, mouth, eyes, mouth, shoulders—like he’s trying to frame the words in a greater context.

That, more than anything else, solves the case for Dean. “Sounds to me like you’ve got a case of the blue balls, man. Your junk’s trying to tell you it needs some exercise. You start feeling it again, then you just jack off—”

“Masturbate,” Castiel says, like he’s repeating a new word in a foreign language.

“Yeah, let that one loose and you’ll be fine. But make sure you’re somewhere private first,” he adds quickly, because Cas is nothing if not the king of taking things literally. “Your room or the bathroom or something. And clean up after yourself when you’re done. You think you can do that?”

Castiel nods, but there’s still that crease between his eyes, like he’s concerned. There’s a tautness to his jaw that Dean's become all too familiar with in the past few weeks.

He wants to start up with _Dude, now?!_ but another part of him is feeling sympathetic. As much as Dean would have liked to skip over some of the more awkward teenage years, they were like body boot camp. A time when he got a free pass for being dorky and confused and a complete amateur, because he was just a kid and that was okay. Cas just got dropped head-first into being an adult, with no instruction manual and no lesson and no grace period to get used to all the random weird urges and glitches that come with being human. For fuck’s sake, he only _just_ mastered how to eat enough to keep him full without making himself sick, and that was after a full-on seminar from Sam.

“Cas,” he says flatly. “Do you know how to masturbate?” Like he’s asking a little kid if he washed behind his ears.

Another signature neck-rub.

“Right.” Dean sighs. “Well, if you can hold on for a bit, I’ll see if I can find some porn that’ll show you how it’s done. If you can’t, we can probably find somebody on Chatroulette.”

“If you think that’s best,” Cas mumbles.

 _You got a better idea?_ sits on the tip of Dean’s tongue, but he bites it back. “Do you not like that plan?”

The ex-angel’s eyes fix on the top button of Dean’s jacket. “I find pornography... confusing. It’s very difficult to make sense of it. I’m concerned it would be more distracting than educational.” He swallows, a distance growing in his eyes. He’s making an effort not to let his pain show, but it’s getting through anyway.

“You’re dealing with it right now, aren’t you?” he asks.

“I’m sorry, Dean.” And dear God, it sounds like he means it, too.

“You know what? Fine. Whatever. Fine.” He grabs Cas by the shoulder and drags him through the halls of the bunker.

They pass Sam as he’s reading in the library. He only manages a quizzical glance before Dean grunts “life lesson,” and he simply nods and returns to his books.

Dean opens the door to Cas’s room and practically throws the ex-angel inside. “All right, class is in session. I want you to sit on the bed, facing the wall. You got that?”

Cas obeys without question, and Dean isn’t sure whether that’s the years of angelic brainwashing or just habit from his dozens of other life lessons at the hands of Team Free Will. Once Cas is situated on one side of the bed Dean positions himself on the other side, his back turned to Cas, his hands clasped behind him like a general standing in the war room.

“Cas, this is a one-time thing, and we’re not going to talk about it again after this. Not because it’s a secret or anything, but because it’s gonna be weird. You got that?”

Cas grunts. “Yes.”

“Good.” _I am so going to Hell for this._ “Now pull down your pants. Underwear, too.”

Cas shuffles behind him, a sound of confusion in his throat. “How far...?”

Dean shuts his eyes. “About halfway down the thighs, usually. But everyone’s different, man. It’s gotta be at a place where it feels comfortable. At least low enough to get your dick out in the open.” He’s trying to be clinical, detached, but it’s hard to say the word ‘dick’ to Castiel unless he’s referring to one of the ex-angel's douchey brothers. “Tell me when you’ve got it.”

The sound of a zipper, and more shuffling. With this much noise, it’s hard not to get a pretty vivid mental image of Cas, just sitting there looking confused and innocent, his penis standing at attention over his bunched-up slacks.

“It’s done, Dean.”

The hunter tries to shake the image out of his head, but it seems to be stuck there.

“You comfortable?” he grunts.

“Yes.”

“You hard?” Too vague for someone as thick-skulled as Castiel. “Your cock. Is it hard?”

A moment’s hesitation. “Yes.”

Dean squeezes his hands against the small of his back. “Good. I want you to touch it.”

“And now?” That contrite obedience again. Perfectly innocent, and completely missing the point of the exercise.

“No, I mean really touch it,” Dean says. “Take time to feel it. Try different amounts of pressure, see what you like, what you don’t. Find what feels good, and do it again.”

Cas’s breath is starting to speed up, rougher and louder than it was before. And if Dean’s turned on, that’s not his fault—the sounds of sex are the sounds of sex.

“You find something you like?” he asks, his voice rougher than it was before. And fuck if he doesn’t feel his cock jump at the way Cas hisses through his “ _yesss_ ”.

“No hurry.” He licks his lips. “But when you’re ready, I want you to wrap your hand around your cock. Like you’re holding your sword.”

Way to be visual—in his mind’s eye he can see Cas, clear as day, one hand gripped iron-tight around his dick, precum beading on the tip of the head. That should so not turn him on, but his pants feel unbearably tight, his member caught at an awkward angle in his briefs. He parts his hands, lowering one to his side, moving the other to the front to adjust himself. The rub of fabric against his head is maddening.

He clears his throat. “Just like before, Cas.” He coughs again, but can’t get the gravel out of his voice. “Adjust your grip until it feels good. It’s not supposed to hurt—unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

A haggard breath from Cas. “Are... are _you_ into that sort of thing?”

It’s an innocent question, because it’s Cas. Because he doesn’t know any better. Because he can’t know how much that sounds like a come-on.

“When the mood hits me,” Dean says. “But not the first time. This is still the getting-to-know-you phase. There’s plenty of time to get creative once you get the hang of it.”

Cas is breathing like he’s in a triathlon, but Dean isn’t hearing the other sounds that usually come with this. In his mind’s eye he can see Cas squeezing the life out of himself, driving himself further but not far enough, and it makes Dean’s chest ache and his hand drift across his crotch.

“I want you to pull on your cock. It’s—it’s kind of like a stabbing motion with the sword, but shorter. Jerk it back and forth.” A groan pours out of Castiel’s mouth, and Dean nearly echoes it with one of his own. “Good. Just like that. Keep going.”

God, he sounds like a phone sex operator. He’s stroking himself harder now, rubbing over his clothed member in time with the sounds coming from Cas. It’s unbearably, undeniably hot, and he can feel his blood boiling.

Educational. Right. “Think about the things you like—think about what got you hard in the first place. Think about what you want. Who you want. How you want ‘m.”

Dean’s eyes snap open. _Them_. He said _them_. Not _him_. Because he doesn’t know if Cas is gay, or bi, or whatever, and he doesn’t think he is, but there’s no reason to assume one way or the other, and he would totally use a gender-neutral pronoun, and there’s no reason whatsoever to say _him_. So that’s totally not what he said. Because Dean is totally not fondling himself to the mental image and surround-sound audio of another guy.

And he’s totally not picturing that other guy with his tie loose and disheveled, and his hair all just-fucked messy, his shirt untucked and his top buttons undone and just _asking_ to be touched.

“ _Dean_.” It hisses through Cas’s teeth like a convulsion, and it sets Dean’s nerves on fire.

“Yeah, Cas?” he breathes.

“Dean, I—” His voice dissolves into a broken moan, and it’s almost enough to warrant an echo from his teacher.

“It’s okay, Cas,” Dean croaks. “You’re doing great. You think—you think you’re getting close?” It shouldn’t be this hard to breathe, and he’s babbling. “It’ll be like—like this pressure. Building and building and you just need release—“

“Yes!” Cas sounds like he’s almost sobbing. “Dean—Dean, what do I do? Tell me—please tell me what to do.” And that sound—Cas so utterly wrecked, desperate and _begging_ —sends Dean’s eyes rolling back in his skull.

“I want you to let it go, Cas. I want you to come for me.”

When Cas comes, it’s not with a scream or a shout—just a long, stuttering, gasping breath, like he’s learning to taste air after a lifetime of drowning.

“Cas?” Dean asks after the gasps have faded into nothing. “You doin’ okay?”

“Dean, that—” God, he sounds like he just ran a mile. “That was incredible.”

“You still got any of your little problem?”

“No.” And he heaves a long, languid sigh that makes Dean’s chest ache. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”  


End file.
